Many years ago we were struck with a thought: why did we buy dead trees every year and put them in our living room? And just like that, we stopped. We devised a Christmas window. Mark built a frame, we wound lights back and forth, and hung the ornaments.
Somehow, hanging the ornaments became more interesting and fun because we could really see each one and reflect on what it meant. All our ornaments have a story – some funny, some poignant, some tragic, some satiric, some historic, but all with a story. I thought I’d share just a couple. And that’s a relative statement. By just a couple I don’t mean two or three, but not many compared to the total mass. I’ll do some every day for a while. At least it may give people the idea that anything at all can be an ornament, and as such, ornaments can tell a family history.
This decorated the top of our wedding cake in 1968. It hung around the house for years – in a box here, a cupboard there. Couldn’t quite bring myself to throw it away even as it became more tattered and stained. Finally the answer presented itself – make it a Christmas ornament. So I did and now it’s a reminder every time I hang it of 42 years of marriage. Overall they’ve been good years, or I guess I wouldn’t still be married.
This ornament joined the family in 1997 when my daughter Karen’s childhood friend Carrie Coons got married to Julian Harvey. These were the favors and we’ve enjoyed this ornament for 13 years now. Carrie and Julian dropped by for Easter dinner last year – I love being friends with my kid’s friends still. When I look at this, so many memories flood my mind besides just the wedding. For example, I think of the time Karen was riding on the handlebars of Carrie’s bike and she was so nervous and guilty because she knew we wouldn’t think that was a good idea. I think she did fall, or maybe I’m making that up. At any rate, all parties survived without permanent damage.
Anything can become an ornament. This was on a drink stirrer in Haiti that our friend Don McLaughlin brought to us. Don was more than a friend – he was our best man, he was the kid’s Godfather, we were students together at Cal Berkeley. Don traveled to Haiti and other countries as an auditor for Bank of America and came back with tales that got less and less believable. Tales about being followed, spied on – but during those years that sort of thing was happening to American business men in South America. There was a spate of kidnappings. So even though we didn’t believe these tales were true, we did believe them. It came to pass that Don had paranoid schizophrenia and eventually he committed suicide before he was 30. We still think of Don and love him and I’m so glad I saved this inconsequential drink stirrer.
Mark and I entered the Peace Corps in Morocco in 1971 when our daughter Jennifer was two years old. Sometime during the subsequent two years I purchased these little dolls and eventually they found their way to the tree and then the window. I stuck paperclips through their hair to hang them but hey, it worked.
Now they will remind us of more than the Peace Corps years. Our country director was Richard Holbrooke, the American diplomat who just died. He was a man of destiny even back then – he had such a towering intellect and such drive that you just knew he would become a force for good. Now we’ll never know what he would have forged from his position as President Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan. I do know he would have made a huge contribution toward a solution to those problems, and perhaps even bring the countries together as he did in the Dayton Accords which brought peace to Bosnia.
This ornament of the Coliseum is more lighthearted, especially if you don’t consider all the gladiators, servants, and common people who were killed for entertainment in this venue. Retailers and manufacturers know what we all want – we want memories. So Cost Plus World Market has ornaments each year of landmarks around the world. And people like me buy them – in my case, an ornament for each country we’ve visited. I still get shivers thinking of the excitement of seeing the Coliseum in person.
This was given to me by Esmerelda Ramirez when I taught 5th grade at Voorheis School. My students always brought presents carefully picked out from the Dollar Store and I treasure them all. This one is meant to hang on a wall – it weighs a ton but I manage to find someplace on the Christmas window to support it. Many of my Voorheis students are graduating from college, one is going to medical school – such wonderful kids from a school many considered hopeless. Far from hopeless, they are carving out good lives for themselves and I remember every one.
Last one for tonight. One of my grandkids made this pink flamingo and it had been hanging around for years – sometimes from a piece of luggage, a purse; sometimes it sat in a box in the closet. And one day, voila! I thought to use it as a Christmas ornament. I don’t remember exactly which grandkid made this, but perhaps they will remember. Perhaps not.
That’s only seven ornaments from the Christmas window, but it’s seven stories and memories, seven meaningful decorations. I’ll do some more tomorrow.
